2026 Doctoral Ceremony

Date: Thursday, May 14, 2026
Time: 3:30-4:45 p.m. (doors open at 12:00 p.m.)
Location: Irvine Auditorium, 3401 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA

Keynote Speaker

David C. Parkes (GrEng’01)

David C. Parkes is the Dean of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the George F. Colony Professor of Computer Science.
A Harvard faculty member since 2001, Parkes founded the EconCS research group at SEAS, which conducts research at the intersection of economics and computer science, especially artificial intelligence and algorithms for social and economic impact. His work focuses on multi-agent AI, computational markets and the digital economy, including novel mechanism design and incentive engineering methods.

Parkes is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. A celebrated teacher and mentor, he has been named Harvard College Professor, twice voted one of Harvard College’s Favorite Professors, and has received the Roslyn Abramson and Capers and Marion McDonald Awards for mentoring and teaching. Parkes has helped launch a number of initiatives, including the Master’s in Data Science (FAS and SEAS), the Harvard Data Science Initiative and the Harvard Business Analytics Program. Parkes earned his M.Eng. from the University of Oxford and Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania.